{"id":10915,"date":"2014-02-10T01:13:15","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T05:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=10915"},"modified":"2015-01-29T16:22:10","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T20:22:10","slug":"karl-ove-knausgaard-come-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2014\/02\/10\/karl-ove-knausgaard-come-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Karl Ove Knausgaard: “Come Together”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here<\/a> to read the abstract of the story on The New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0webpage (this week\u2019s story is available only for subscribers). Karl Ove Knausgaard\u2019s \u201cCome Together\u201d (tr. from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett) was originally published in the February 17 & 24, 2014 issue of The New Yorker<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a>
Click for a larger image.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trevor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since this is merely an excerpt from the\u00a0third installment of Knausgaard’s My Struggle<\/em>, which is coming out from Archipelago Books in May, I’m going to forgo reading it\u00a0(my review of the first volume, which I loved, is here<\/a>). I’m already sold. As Betsy says below, though, this excerpt might be just what some of you need to get going on the long trek through Knausgaard’s series.<\/p>\n

Betsy<\/strong><\/p>\n

This excerpt (\u201cCome Together\u201d) from Karl Ove Knausgaard\u2019s\u00a0 soon-to-be published-in-English third book in his autobiographical series was my introduction to this writer.\u00a0Here is a case, Trevor, where having access to a long excerpt really worked for me.\u00a0Otherwise, I would have missed him.<\/p>\n

Then, I went back to your fine piece on him. Knowing you, I could really triangulate on my reaction. You said you were \u201cin from the beginning.\u201d You also call the writing beautiful, powerful, personal and meaningful<\/i>. Now, this particular excerpt is, among other things, hilarious and touching on the life of a twelve year old.\u00a0I really liked it. But I felt intimations of all the things you felt as well.<\/p>\n

I thought \u2013 I need to know more about this writer.<\/p>\n

After reading Cressida Leyshon\u2019s worthwhile interview (here<\/a>), I also read James Wood in the New Yorker<\/i> (here<\/a>), Larry Rother in the New York Times<\/i> (here<\/a>), and Jesse Baron\u2019s superior interview in the Paris Review (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I am struck by how much I am drawn to the idea of self-revelation. We\u2019ve been reading Alice Munro, and certainly she reveals a great deal about herself in her writing, but she also writes about concealment and dissembling, even deception.\u00a0I have recently been reading a little Rae Armantrout, a poet who is Knausgaard\u2019s opposite\u00a0— someone who hides behind multiple voices, who is almost impenetrable, and who epitomizes the line of writers who descend from Beckett. Knausgaard obviously epitomizes the line from Proust.<\/p>\n

I think this is a personal taste, shaped by upbringing and one\u2019s own nature. I grew up with an attentive, responsible, caring mother who was nevertheless a sphinx. That personal history makes me drawn to a writer like Knausgaard.\u00a0I am not really deeply interested in silence.\u00a0I\u2019ve had a lot of experience with silence, and I treasure openness. To me, openness is rare.\u00a0Knausgaard interests me, although I\u2019m a little wary of the time commitment.<\/p>\n

Everyone comments on Knausgaard\u2019s everyday language. True, this is a shock, after all the jewel-like sentences we have come to love in other writes.\u00a0In the Paris Review<\/i> interview, Knausgaard says:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all the difference in the world. I had tried to write from the age of eighteen, but didn\u2019t succeed at all. Then, when I was about twenty-seven, I changed my language. This is difficult to explain. You can write a radical Norwegian or a conservative Norwegian. And when I changed to a conservative Norwegian, I gained this distance or objectivity in the language. The gap released something in me, and in the writing, which made it possible for the protagonist to think thoughts I had never myself thought.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In an interesting article in The Millions<\/i> (here<\/a>),\u00a0Jonathan Callahan writes about Knausgaard\u2019s style:<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s very little polish at phrase-level, sentences are syntactically<\/i> complex\u00a0— circuitous, recursive, serpentine in the way bar-stool disquisitions on points of intense personal interest can be\u00a0— and if consistently guilty of the serial-comma-splice, then also a reflection of the almost desperate speed with which Knausgaard seems determined to track every insight, notion, thought-line, argument, reflection through the labyrinthine warrens of whatever burrowing creature\u2019s hole it\u2019s drawn him down.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am interested in the idea that Knausgaard\u2019s writing reflects the nature of thinking.<\/p>\n

This is a writer who appears to be confronting the uses of openness as an antidote to the psychotic\u2019s withdrawal from reality. The fact that he uses Hitler\u2019s title as his own\u00a0is jarring. But if \u201cCome Together\u201d is any example, Knausgaard celebrates life, praises it, and tries to be at one with it.\u00a0If he is a descendent of Proust, I also hear Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dickens. And in this piece, Twain. So in contrast to Beckett, Knausgaard answers Hitler (and all other destroyers) with life.<\/p>\n

So\u00a0— Trevor\u00a0— this is an interesting writer.\u00a0As with your other readers, I am guided by your own interest in Knausgaard. But in this case, I also appreciate the excerpt. It really got my attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to read the abstract of the story on The New Yorker\u00a0webpage (this week\u2019s story is available only for subscribers). Karl Ove Knausgaard\u2019s \u201cCome Together\u201d (tr. from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett) was originally published in the February 17 & 24, 2014 issue of The New Yorker. Trevor Since this is merely an excerpt … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[393,94],"tags":[],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-10915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-karl-ove-knausgaard","category-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-2Q3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10915"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15078,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10915\/revisions\/15078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10915"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}